Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I review myself!

In this post, I will critique the pencil art of a page drawn in 1995, drawn by me! At the time, I was inking a bunch of Marvel books but putting together some pencil samples. This page is from an X-men script that I got a hold of way back when. The story shows that Prof. X, Cyclops and Storm have crashed in a blinding snow storm. Storm is having a bad time in the storm (get it?). You can see my original 15 year old pencils next to my recent inks.Because I am never satisfied with my own art, I tend to destroy the older stuff. This pencil page managed to survive the countless purges. When I decided to to ink the page I thought to myself, how would I advise the younger me? I made the changes in the inks, but what would I point out as correctable to the penciler?

Here is a quick breakdown.First, check your anatomy. The Storm figure in frame 2, her head is too small. The pencils might have followed the comicbook styles popular at the time, but that's no excuse.

Second, work on your expressions! The Prof. X face looks bored. I tried to fix it in the inks, but his expression should be more expressive!

Third, the Storm face in the last panel is ugly and badly drawn. The change I made was necessary, but might not be well received by the ME of fifteen years ago!

I wish that I could reach back thru time to advise the Don of 15 years ago,

1 comment:

Hey Don, was this the script from X-Men Unlimited #1? This was one of my favorite comics growing up, and it's great to see another interpretation of it. It's awesome to see your progression over the course of 15 years - The inking is very smooth and the corrections to the faces on the bottom tier of panels really strengthen the page.